Problem Activating Office 2019

GracieAllen said:

MisterEd, thanks for all the information about MSDN.

BUT, if it actually ISN'T available for mere mortals, WHY has the software been working for 2+ YEARS? And CONTINUING to work on the OTHER two computers? Since it HAS, it can't be some bizarre version.

I'm not sure the seller exists any more - they definitely don't respond to repeated emails.

And as far as the "update office to make it stop complaining" thing - no. It churns for a while and says it's downloading updates, but when it's done it STILL wants the software activated.

SO, same question I keep asking - HOW do I get this software, which has WORKED for over 2 YEARS, to work AGAIN? It's a purchased license - one of three - and the OTHER TWO still work perfectly.

Hi there
did you read my post.

Cheers
jimbo

GracieAllen said:

MisterEd, thanks for all the information about MSDN.
BUT, if it actually ISN'T available for mere mortals, WHY has the software been working for 2+ YEARS? And CONTINUING to work on the OTHER two computers? Since it HAS, it can't be some bizarre version.

I am not sure what type of license you have. If you do the following you will know for sure.

Using the command line to check your Office license type

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt window.

2. Type the following command to navigate to the Office folder.

For 32-bit (x86) Office

cd c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\

For 64-bit (x64) Office

cd c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\

3. Type cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus, and then press Enter.

Please post back as to what the output shows you. Is your key Retail, OEM, volume license, ...

If you really have a MSDN retail license it is easy to see why it might stop working. You have no way of knowing how many other people were sold the same license key as you bought. Also, some people who bought the same key might have just given it to all their friends. In any event at some point your license key may have been used enough times to trigger a flag on the license servers. I have read somewhere that Microsoft recently started cracking down on this kind of abuse. If so that might explain why all of sudden your key stopped working.

run this cmd (as administrator)

cd "\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun"
Enter :
OfficeC2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.13801.20266


Wait till office completes its thing and then disable updates by opening any Office program, click Account, Update Options, Disable Updates.

I haven't gone out and gotten the license from the laptop, but I'm confident it'll say it's something MSDN since both OTHER systems say that...

LICENSE NAME: Office 19, Office19ProPlus2019MSDNR_Retail edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 19, RETAIL channel

This is what comes up on my desktop, so I'm sure there'll be some garbage about how it's not a legitimate version for the normal, stupid user that just keeps shoving money at MS.

That said, I bought 'em thinking they were real, and it'd be REAL nice if this one was made to work.

And guys, STOP telling me to run the office update - IT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING. The software STILL complains.

At this point, my wife, on who's laptop this is being a PITA, is SO totally pissed off at Microsoft she says she'll switch to gmail for all her email stuff and we'll put Office Home 2010 back on her box for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. I won't use the terms she used to describe what she thinks, having legitimately (as far as we know) purchased licenses, but I can pretty much guarantee she has NO plans to ever give Microsoft another penny if she can avoid it.

And if the other 2 systems quit, I'm very likely to do the same thing, 'cause this is total cattle feces.

Sadly people get swindled with these types of licenses all of the time. It boils down to the old saying, "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is".

You say it's Office 2019 Professional. That license should cost about $440 each.




Did you pay over $400 per license, thus $1200 for that software?

If you found one of these types of deals, it's probably not a genuine license for sale.



The issue with these el-cheapo licenses is that they may activate (and if they do, you are lucky and you saved yourself a bunch of cash), But they may also not activate down the road (as you are seeing now), if Microsoft detected that these keys were being used in a non-legitimate manner.

GracieAllen said:

I haven't gone out and gotten the license from the laptop, but I'm confident it'll say it's something MSDN since both OTHER systems say that...

LICENSE NAME: Office 19, Office19ProPlus2019MSDNR_Retail edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 19, RETAIL channel

This is what comes up on my desktop, so I'm sure there'll be some garbage about how it's not a legitimate version for the normal, stupid user that just keeps shoving money at MS.

That said, I bought 'em thinking they were real, and it'd be REAL nice if this one was made to work.

And guys, STOP telling me to run the office update - IT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING. The software STILL complains.

At this point, my wife, on who's laptop this is being a PITA, is SO totally pissed off at Microsoft she says she'll switch to gmail for all her email stuff and we'll put Office Home 2010 back on her box for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. I won't use the terms she used to describe what she thinks, having legitimately (as far as we know) purchased licenses, but I can pretty much guarantee she has NO plans to ever give Microsoft another penny if she can avoid it.

And if the other 2 systems quit, I'm very likely to do the same thing, 'cause this is total cattle feces.

What should tip people off is seeing Office 2019 Professional Plus for sale. These versions are only suppose to be sold by official volume license distributors and through MSDN subsciptions. They are not supposed to be sold to the general public.

However, what is legal for the general public to buy is Office 2019 Professional.

Please don't blame Microsoft for any of this. The only money Microsoft got was from the original MSDN subscriptions. These subscriptions are perfectly legal. What was illegal was the MSDN subscribers illegally reselling their Office 2019 Professional Plus product keys.

If you still want to use Microsoft Office please consider these options:

Microsoft 365 Personal (1 person): $69.99 /year
Microsoft 365 Family (2-6 people): $99.99 /year
Microsoft Office Home & Student 2019 (1 computer): $149.99

If you are paranoid about where to buy it simply buy it directly from Microsoft.

Microsoft 365 - For Home
https://www.microsoft.com/EN-US/micr...=MSCOM_QL_M365

^ Agreed, about Office 365. I've had it for a few years and it's a no-brainer from a cost perspective for me.

I have 4 family members. All 4 of us have a desktop running Windows, 2 of us having laptops running MacOS. All of us, can install what equates to Office Professional to all of these devices. In addition, each of us gets 1TB of OneDrive space. All 4 of us, have cell phones, (2 androids and 2 iPhones), and all of these phones have their pictures and videos uploaded to our own OneDrive accounts.

Since Office 365 allows for 6 people and they allow sharing your subscription, I have given 1 subscription to my dad. Now he has Office Professional on any of his devices and he has 1TB of OneDrive space. And that still leaves me with 1 unused account, which I could give to another family member or friend if I wanted to.

For $99 a year its an absolutely incredible deal in my opinion. If I had to buy 6 copies of Office Pro (4 PC's and 2 Mac's) that would equate to about $400 x 6, $2400. Instead, I could pay for Office365 for about 25 years before I hit that cost. Or, in 3 years if I no longer have a need for Office I can just cancel my sub and the payment stops. But if I had bought the full license for that software, it would just be a lost cost.